USS Cassin and USS Downes- "Totally the Same Ships, We Swear!"
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- Опубліковано 23 сер 2024
- Also known as flexing on Imperial Japan.
The story of USS Cassin and USS Downes is often boiled down to one thing. Burnt and blown apart at Pearl Harbor, rebuilt into new ships, and then...nothing. Maybe, at best, a mention of the fact that their machinery was used in the new ships.
That ignores all the effort and work that went into raising their shattered hulks. How many resources and manpower that went towards the new ships. And, of course, the service of those new ships.
It's important to remember these things, too.
Further Reading:
www.usni.org/m...
www.history.na...
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www.amazon.com...
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The lengths that navies will go through to flex on their enemies is always entertaining and fascinating. The Royal Navy stitched together Zulu and Nubian to form Nubian, and the US rebuilt Cassin and Downes around salvaged machinery based on their sisters' blueprints.
Which was honestly stupid given that the Mahans were already 7 classes out of date at the time of Pearl Harbor, with the massively-improved Gleaves class already in service and the Fletchers already being built. Even the Sims class was a huge step up.
With the Royal Navy doing that thing of stitching together halves of HMS Nubian and HMS Zulu to form HMS Zubian in WW1, they also did the opposite thing in WW2. HMS Porcupine was damaged beyond repair during the war, and her halves were repurposed as HMS Pork and HMS Pine.
The Cassin and Downes being "still alive and repaired after a small wound" is the best real life example of "cope". They were decommissioned on 12/7/41 and 6/20/42 meaning the original two destroyers were destroyed by one tiny 250kg Japanese bomb that exploded in the perfect place. I really do think that they "repaired" both of them by building brand new ships with the old names and numbers slapped onto them because of propaganda reasons and they did not want to admit to Japan the embarrassment that one fluke 250kg bomb damaged both ships beyond repair, which is the same as sunk. What happened with Cassin and Downes' machinery was very much the same as them stripping Arizona and Oklahoma of their workable machinery, 14" guns, and equipment and putting them on existing ships or brand new ships. Shaw is the only one that can be claimed to be damaged but repaired because at least a third of her hull was saved and she could actually sail to California safely. The new Cassin and Downes were not even built to the same standards and dimensions as the original ones because the originals were built on the East Coast. In Mare Island, who built the new destroyers, their Mahan destroyers were built to different blueprints and dimensions so nobody can even claim that those were carbon copies of the original destroyers. The Japanese successfully destroyed permanently not only AZ and OK but also Cassin and Downes. For "cope" reasons the Navy claimed that saving the turbine engines and some other equipment means "Cassin and Downes didn't really get destroyed" even though according to their own official records they were decommissioned in 1941-42 meaning they died at Pearl Harbor.
The one thing to remember is that when they decided to "rebuild" these ships they didn't know that the need would be over by the end of 1943. It was a logical decision when it was made, but didn't make sense by the time it was actually carried out.
My great uncle was on the California at Pearl harbor. They made the right choice. Bringing them back to life.
Were they a rebuild or a new destroyer with used equipment?
I always considered them as basically new builds!
@@mahbriggs Basically a new hull around the original propulsion system.
@ostrich67
"RESURRECTION: Salvaging the Battle Fleet at Pearl Harbor" by Daniel Madsen gives a pretty good description of the damage the two destroyers suffered and the debate about what to do with them.
That can be said for a LOT of the military equipment from ships to trucks to rifles, basically 50% of anything that was built after the spring of 43’
Don't forget USS Shaw, which is famous for the single most spectacular explosion photo from Pearl Harbor. She was also a Mahan class, same as Cassin and Downes. Everything but a few feet in front of the forward funnel was gone, roughly 1/3 of the entire length of the ship. At least with Shaw there was actual salvageable hull left, but in all three cases rebuilding a destroyer of a significantly obsolete class (already 7 classes out of date in just 5 years) when they already had the massively-improved Gleaves-class in service and the Fletchers right around the corner were a complete waste.
The Cassin was given two nicknames: one was USS Frankenstein the other was the USS “Fouled Up”(not exactly)
I think it's remarkable they invested in rebuilding destroyers like this. Sure they were desperate for fighting hulls at the time but soon they were practically injection-molding destroyers out of the shipyards within a year.
Hulls were easy to make. Shipyards sprung up overnight on every mudflat that was big enough to support them. Steam turbines and especially reduction gearsets, not so much. Only a few companies in the US could produce such precision machined equipment, and they were quite busy as you can imagine. That's why Liberty ships had 19th-century piston steam engines, and destroyer escorts and auxiliaries had turbo-electric plants where the turbines turned generators which powered huge electric motors that turned the propellers, because those were way easier to make than reduction gears which convert high-speed rotation of the steam turbines into low-speed rotation required by the propellers.
@@ostrich67 Aha, great comment sir, so thanks. I believe in the last or previous to that Drydock that Drachinifel addressed the difficulty and time spent making reduction gears and turbines so that's a fair observation.
Hulls of new modern destroyers are easy to make*
The new Cassin and Downes were built with 10+ old ancient blueprints and tech from the early 1930s Mahan class. Not efficient at all for the Mare Island shipbuilders. Only reason they did that was because the USN were in denial of the fact that Japan destroyed the original Downes and Cassin with only one tiny 250kg bomb at Pearl Harbor. The new Downes and Cassin were not even carbon copies of the original Downes and Cassin. The east coast Mahan destroyers had different dimensions and specs from the west coast Mahan destroyers. All they did was waste perfectly good steel and hardworking men and women to build two new ancient tech Mahan destroyers for coping reasons when they could have simply reuse the names and hull numbers for 2 brand new state of the art destroyers from newer 1940s classes. Officially the Downes and Cardin were destroyed at Pearl Harbor as shown when they both were decommissioned in Dec 1941 and Jun 1942 because they were damaged beyond repair. The new Cassin and Downes were commissioned as brand new ships but they cosmetically were able to reuse the old name and hull numbers. Good old propaganda game just so the Navy can lie and claim that "only" Arizona and Oklahoma were destroyed at Pearl Harbor. The destroyer Shaw was half destroyed but she still kept half of her original hull and could even sail on her own to Mare Island for real repair. Shaw's renovation was an actual repair job. Not Cassin and Downes. They couldn't even transport the original Cassin and Downes outside of Oahu so they had to scrap them both in Pearl Harbor itself!
Interesting discussion and an interesting decision by the Navy. They did need the ships when the decision was made to rebuild them. They were not, by far the only ships built (rebuilt) with short service lives after commissioning. We were loading for bear, but by the time we were fully loaded, we only needed to be prepared for coyote.
One major difference is the total absence of Portholes in the Forecastle after the rebuild. Same as with Shaw's new bow
The recent destruction of the Ropucha class LST and Kilo class sub in the Sevastopol drydocks reminded me of the Cassin and Downes. Who knows the level of damage to the drydock itself but it's gonna be a pain to remove the wrecks!
Maybe I am too sentimental, but I can’t understand rebuilding these ships as a morale booster and message to the world in 1943 and then not preserving them in 1947. They would have made great museum ships.
Museum ships are extremely costly to preserve and maintain upkeep. Be thankful for the ones we have.
@@benmiland5245I don't think most people understand just how expensive it is to acquire and maintain a museum ship. Also, in 1947, people wanted to put the war behind them, and build a new life. The two ships had boosted moral in 1943 and 1944, but so much had happened after Pearl Harbor, by war's end they were just footnotes in naval history.
You make some great videos. Thanks I really enjoy watching
That cruiser from 12:57 on behind them is probably USS Raleigh as she was damaged too
Yeah. I had known they were rebuilt but was surprised by that.
Still - with all those Battle Stars - they did something.
I was surprised here - to find out that _Shaw_ had been fixed.
There are all kinds of calculations that go on about these things.
The Navy recently had an LHD catch fire while undergoing a refit and while the hull looked fine - it was determined that it wasn't worth salvaging - one of the factors there - was that it would have had to use construction space - needed to build the other ships being built.
Here - we have a situation where the USA does not have the construction facilities it once had. We have to keep building new submarines, carriers and tanks - because if we stopped - we'd lose the facilities to do that and then we couldn't do that. One of the things about these things shutting down - is that the property is quickly gobbled up and converted to do other things. That is what has happened with a number of the facilities shut down in the wake of the Cold War ending. They didn't just shut the bases down - the disposed of them - and now there's something else there like ... Condo's or something like that.
China - I've heard - has vastly greater ability to build Naval Vessels.
Another issue - is the utter foolishness of the USA scrapping it's old carriers instead of moth balling them. If we go to war with China - or Putin - we could end up losing carriers and they take a horrendously long time to build.
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Up until now, I thought these two ships were scrapped. I did not know they basically had their guts and systems installed in new hulls, kept their hull numbers and names then returned to service.
Their 37 knot speed capability was an important asset for use as fleet carrier escort ships. It appears they were run hard and fast for much of their service lives after Pearl Harbor. Little ships like these rarely have the speed capability to keep up with the big fast movers. (Make no mistake, as far as destroyers go, these were little ships with high powered engines.)
Not every ship in the fleet was a famous battle hero. These two ships did necessary jobs. Like untold numbers of other ships that served and without much fanfare, disappeared into history.
The original two destroyers were destroyed and scrapped though. They really just saved the engines and other internal equipment just like how they moved most of Arizona's and Oklahoma's 14" guns and other surviving equipment to other ships or even newer battleships. Shaw was pretty much half destroyed but was actually repaired. Not the propaganda attempt by the Navy with the new Cassin and Downes where they actually nowadays claim with a straight face that Cassin and Downes were "lightly damaged" at Pearl Harbor so they can lie and claim that only AZ and OK were destroyed. They were so embarrassed that Japan destroyed 2 destroyers in drydock with only one 250kg bomb.
The new Cassin and Downes were built with 10+ old ancient blueprints and tech from the early 1930s Mahan class. Not efficient at all for the Mare Island shipbuilders. The new Downes and Cassin were not even carbon copies of the original Downes and Cassin. The east coast Mahan destroyers had different dimensions and specs from the west coast Mahan destroyers. All they did was waste perfectly good steel and hardworking men and women to build two new ancient tech Mahan destroyers for coping reasons when they could have simply reuse the names and hull numbers for 2 brand new state of the art destroyers from newer 1940s classes. Officially the Downes and Cardin were destroyed at Pearl Harbor as shown when they both were decommissioned in Dec 1941 and Jun 1942 because they were damaged beyond repair. The new Cassin and Downes were commissioned as brand new ships but they cosmetically were able to reuse the old name and hull numbers. They couldn't even transport the original destroyed Cassin and Downes outside of Oahu so they had to scrap them both in Pearl Harbor itself!
WOWS could do a package bundle of Cassin and Downes.
We have survivors... in "The Fifth Element" sense.
Great video, thanks!
La somme de travail effectué pour remettre ces deux navires en état !! Congrest for us ...
Interesting video, I love it
The “Rampant Lions” of Destroyer Squadron 21 - Solomon's onward.
incredible images..incredible damage...please do more of the carnage at Pearl..a day of infamy for sure...
Drachinifel has a great 3 part series on the salvage at Pearl and a really good analysis of what happened to the Arizona.
I have always puzzled at those 2 getting rebuilt.
How big was the drydock
Big. 1002 feet by 138 feet by 35 feet deep. Still in regular use.
After being rebuilt, they almost look British
One of them should have been renamed USS Theseus
Pronounced May hAn